Type II Fun – fun only in retrospect, hateful while it’s happening. Things like working out ‘till you puke, and usually ice and alpine climbing. After climbing the West Face Couloir on Huntington, Scotty and I both swore that we hated alpine climbing. The final 1,000′ was horrific – swimming up sugar snow that collapsed beneath us, roped together without protection – and took nearly as long as the initial 3,000′ from camp. On the summit, Scotty turned to me and said, in complete seriousness, “I want my mom so bad right now.” By the time we reached Talkeetna our talk of Huntington turned to, “Ya know, that wasn’t so bad. What should we try next time?”

Type III Fun – not fun at all, not even in retrospect. As in, “What the hell was I thinking? If I ever even consider doing that again, somebody slap some sense into me.” The final 1,000′ of Huntington, when I stop and think about it…but, then again, a friend climbed it the next year and had perfect conditions.

I guess you never really know what sort of fun you’re getting yourself into once you leave the couch, which is fine, because it doesn’t always have to be “fun” to be fun.

Maybe the whole goal, the path of the enlightened, is to turn Type III situations into Type I fun. Right. Anybody had any luck with that?

I travel overseas quite a bit and have considered buying a satellite phone until I traveled to India. They were really concerned about cell phones in general and wanted to know if I was going to leave one in India. They also were very concerned to know if I was carrying a satellite phone.

I didn't want to prolong that conversation any more than I had to so I didn't ask the obvious question of "If I did would I have to give it up?" The thought of forfeiting a $1000 phone was a little unnerving.

This is the only country which has ever asked me these questions but it's something to be aware of.

We have hiked with a 75 year old friend who uses a SPOT for tracking and sending an "ok" to his wife from remote areas ( across the state of CA thru desert regions) and SEKI) It worked most of the time pretty well but only keeps records for ten days (so someone else has to capture the screen shots of the route) We do not own one and have very mixed feelings about such devices in the wilderness. We like to do ten day mostly off trail backpack trips in the Sierra and have had only one emergency in 35+ years on a Sierra Cub outing. The leader, our older friend, had to hike out 20 miles over a big E side pass, get a helicopter for a HAPE victim, which we got him out successfully on, then he hiked back in. It saved the man but pretty exhausting for the leader). My husband is a very fit 71 and I am 57, small & fairly fit and also do ten day solos. For me, ANY extra weight for a device must be reliable and worth carrying around just in case something really bad happens. I would only want a device for rescue and possibly weather reports. Just curious, does anyone have any experience or thoughts on how to get a wx report, ie on a small ipod thru radio or noaa radio or ??? Thanks. I look forward to the next installments.

Good one for including the carrier pigeon as a communication device. This brought to mind a quote I'd heard before: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." That was from Andrew Tanenbaum. While totally off-topic for backpacking, it does bring to mind the importance of thinking outside the box. What other methods could be used for backcountry communication? Messages left in known areas that will be checked by someone at a specific, for example?

I live in Australia and have used an Immarsat phone for hiking in Australia and New Zealand. I did a lot of research and came to the conclusion that Iridium had much better coverage. I went to the Sat Phone shop to buy an iridium phone but the owner talked me out of it. He said that that in theory iridium had better coverage but in practice Immarsat gave more reliable coverage with little dropping out. He sold both types and in fact the Immarsat was way cheaper with a flat rate of $100 for 100 minutes prepaid and two years to use it in !Australia is a vast empty continent with lots of areas of no cell phone coverage. Exploration companies use satellite phones and most go for Immarsat. I have used the Immarsat in very mountainous areas of New Zealand without a problem. I have heard a lot of anecdotal evidence of iridium not working very well in deep valleys.The Immarsat is also a lot cheaper to buy and call .

In fact, I'm thinking of buying a second one for my wife, just in case we get separated in white out conditions. The phones will also give you your exact position.

The InReach must not have the ability to display a topo map showing where you are

Do you have to pay something to send messages?

I agree, this looks very promising

Even if we're not quite there yet, it's close. I want GPS with display of topo map showing where I am, recording of tracks and waypoints so when I get back home I can see where I was, display tracks that were recorded so I can retrace my steps, and two way text messaging. Like the ability to send an email and look at at an email that was sent to me sometime in the past.

Like the older InReach models, the InReach SE has a GPS receiver, but will not show topo maps on the built-in screen. You will need to pair with an Apple iOS or Android device, and install the DeLorme app and maps. Maps on the paired device can be overlaid with your position, etc.

Like the older InReach models, you must subscribe to a DeLorme service plan to send and receive messages. Early reports state the InReach SE plans will cost the same as the older models. See www.inreachdelorme.com for details.

But the DeLorme InReach SE hasn't been officially announced yet, so who knows? A few dealers pre-announced this device; nothing official from DeLorme yet.

Thanks, Rex & BackpackingLight for this well-researched and informative guide. Was I the only one who wondered, only briefly of course, "how much would a carrier pigeon weigh...and eat?"

Perspective makes all the difference. Like any gear, suitability of a sat phone (or other sat device) depends on the best match with performance criteria needed in any given situation/application. For emergencies, the user's understanding of the inevitable tradeoffs/shortcomings is crucial. This article, like most BPL pieces, helps users sort cost/benefit in a practical, perhaps critical way before heading out to the field.

Yeah if you want to use gps on the inreach se you have to couple it with your smarty phone and use an app. It is in 24k resolution. Ive seen pics of what it looks like but they were zoomed out. But AFAIK it 24k Is as good as it gets.

The thing with cameras is its probably a half- ass camera good for documenting 'this feature is here' as in waypoints. Anyone who wants a 'real' camera should probably stick to a dedicated camera.

I think they will offer a external battery pack just in case. It uses a mini usb plug to charge the internal.

Not all readers live and/or hike in the US. For those hiking in the EMEA hemisphere, Thuraya would be my advice. I have one: low rates and good coverage in most parts of EMEA. Bought mine on Ebay for €320. Weight is 130g, including battery.

@ Iridium: I have met some people with mixed review: - sometimes a high drop call rate (My theory is that the LEO-satellites do not stay put on in the sky, compared to GEO-satellites). One could lose line of sight during a call, especially in mountains due to this.- same latency as GEO-satellites. My theory is that this is the result of the existence of only one ground station (Arizona). I one would call e.g. from Nepal to Europa, the Iridium signal first has to travel through numerous Iridium-satellites to Arizona, then via cable back to Europe. My hypothesis is that latency could be generated due to the extra distance and the 'call queuing' of signals through this relatively complex system.

Once the Globalstar satellites become online, we might be in for a positive surprise with regard to the latency issue (combination of LEO-satellites and a bent-pipe system). No global coverage though (e.g. Indian subscontinent).

"I want GPS with display of topo map showing where I am, recording of tracks and waypoints so when I get back home I can see where I was, display tracks that were recorded so I can retrace my steps, and two way text messaging. Like the ability to send an email and look at at an email that was sent to me sometime in the past."

How tedious. I just have a small plane continuously fly over me while I hike to take pictures of me and the trail the entire way. I signal messages to the plane with a mirror, and they mirror back. Better than text messages.

"How tedious. I just have a small plane continuously fly over me while I hike to take pictures of me and the trail the entire way. I signal messages to the plane with a mirror, and they mirror back. Better than text messages."

Hiking drones...hey hush. That is my new Kickstarter idea. Combine a view cam, GPS tracker, and food cache. You just send it off to the nearest MacDonalds to pick up a meal deal, fly it back to you and air drop it. And if you need help you send it off to the Ranger station instead of use a PLB. Sort of like Lassie crossed with the Terminator.

Great idea, but I'm going with the helicopter drone model for landing and take off (two-way communication). Now that's backpacking light - having your gear delivered to your camp each afternoon and hauled off in the morning to the next camp.

Not sure why I am shifting to being serious on this point, but by "drone" I mean a hover or copter drone. The kind that are going to be everywhere in the future. The control systems are now good enough to make them autonomous.

I had a Globalstar phone from 2005-2009, until their failed-amp problems got so bad that I wasn't able to make a connection even during predicted windows. I also had a 9600-baud Internet kit, which was useful when traveling by car outside of cell coverage.

I then switched to an Iridium phone. It has worked reliably whenever I've used it, including in areas with limited sky view. The contract price keeps creeping up ($55/mo. not including minutes), so I'm considering moving back to Globalstar when they become fully operational again.

I consider the sat phone to be a 1-pound penalty for my freedom. It's a business thing, and as long as I can check that my machines are running smoothly and thump them when they aren't, I can be away doing what I want. I also go solo, off-trail, year-round, and as long as my wife knows I can call if I'm in trouble, she doesn't worry about me. I don't consider that I'm 'chained to the grid'; instead, because I only use it to call out and it's turned off otherwise, nobody can bother me until I am ready to check in for a few minutes once a day. Since I don't have an Internet kit for it, I can't check my e-mail ("so sorry").

For whitewater raft trips in the Grand Canyon, NPS recommends (PDF) satellite phones or handheld ground-to-air radio transceivers for emergency communications. With the radio, you raise a passing airplane on a monitored frequency, relay a brief message to the pilot, and the pilot passes the message onward. If you get a commercial airliner, the message might go you -> pilot -> LA, Denver, or Albuquerque ATC -> local sheriff -> NPS.

I rented a ground-to-air radio for a 1996 Grand Canyon trip, which never came out of it's Pelican box. No small sat phones back then.

A little over twenty years ago, a ground-to-air transceiver saved some lives on Mount Whitney. Backpackers were in the summit hut one afternoon when it was struck by lightning, killing at least one outright. Others were severely injured and others only mildly burned. One survivor ran to get help. [Try running at 14,000 feet sometime and see how far you get.] He ran down to Trail Camp at 12,000 feet where some boy scouts had a transceiver. Once they understood the emergency, they transmitted a Mayday to an airliner passing overhead. The pilot got the message and radioed ahead to the tower at LAX, which telephoned the Inyo County Sheriff. The sheriff could not do much that afternoon, so they called the Air National Guard which flew a small helicopter up to the summit for rescue... that very afternoon. That is pretty impressive. They took the two severely injured people right then. At dawn the next morning, a large helicopter flew up to the summit and flew the rest of the party off.